American Raiders: The Race to Capture the Luftwaffeâ??s Secrets

Preface and Acknowledgments

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS American Raiders provides a glimpse of the complex story of the disarmament of the Luftwaffe after its defeat in the spring of 1945 and the exploitation of its aeronautical secrets. Disarmament and exploitation were two distinctly separate acts executed by unique organizational entities created for those specific purposes. The umbrella plan under which the disarmament of the Luftwaffe was implemented was Operation Eclipse. Eclipse took over where Overlord left off, Overlord having been the plan which provided for the invasion of Europe up to the defeat of the enemy, while Eclipse covered the disarmament and permanent military neutralization of Nazi Germany. For American airmen tasked to exploit the aeronautical secrets of the Third Reich, Operation Lusty provided the authority, direction, and concept of operation. These two groups,the disarmers and the exploiters,worked hand in glove,one feeding the other,and by doing so ensured each other’s success.Although the process as it unfolded was anything but orderly, they succeeded in their respective tasks beyond anyone’s expectations. This army of dismemberment and discovery came from varied sources within the European theater of operations, the ETO. Combat crew replacement squadrons, no longer needed as the war neared its end and bomber losses diminished, were turned into disarmament [ ix ] squadrons. Specially trained Air Technical Intelligence teams were formed and directed to find and recover the secrets of the Third Reich. A small group of volunteer P-47 combat pilots rounded out this diverse group of men charged with disarming and exploiting the once feared and mighty Luftwaffe. Although they had held up their hands and volunteered , they had no idea that they were signing up to fly enemy jets and receive their training from German pilots. The war had been bitterly fought, but it left behind a surprisingly small residue of personal animosity among its American and German combatants,who suddenly found themselves working and flying together for a common cause. American Raiders is the story of Operation Lusty, of the disarmament of the German air force, and of how its secret and advanced weaponry, developed too late to play a significant role in saving the crumbling Third Reich, became the basis for America’s technological rejuvenation. The Nazis could never have imagined that the weaponry they built in such secrecy to defeat the western Allies would loom large in the ultimate defeat of the Soviet Union—only fifty-some years later. Of all the captured hardware, the Me-262 jet fighter and the Arado 234 jet bomber fascinated most and elicited the greatest attention. On the one hand, their capture symbolized the magnitude of the American military victory over a sophisticated enemy; on the other, these very airplanes pointed to America’s own technological deficiencies and backwardness.As Americans went about the task of collecting German hardware, drawings, blueprints, and documentation, some quickly understood that hardware was only a small part of what needed to be brought home. What was much more important was to tap the minds of the innovative scientists who had come up with these ideas in the first place. The Wissenschaftler were the real prizes of war. This shift in focus, on the ideas of men rather than on yesterday’s hardware, quickly became a struggle between those wanting retribution and others who wanted to get on with the business of securing America’s future. The eventual transfer of the German scientists to the United States and Preface and Acknowledgments [ x ] their integration into American society became known as Project Overcast and Project Paperclip. That the two projects did not die on the vine is a credit to the farsightedness and perseverance of men like Arnold, Spaatz, Cannon, Knerr, McDonald, Putt, Watson, and many other dedicated American warriors. It was their persistence in overcoming bureaucratic inertia, misguided patriotism, and outright hostility which in the end provided this country with the means to emerge from the Cold War victorious. Because of them there was no repeat of the World War II technology debacle when the MiG-15 challenged American air power in Korea in 1951, and American strategic bomber and intercontinental ballistic missile superiority assured that the Cold War would be resolved in its favor. How it all came about is the story of American Raiders—the story of the last battle of World War II in Europe, which was not for military victory but for the technology...